Electric Shadows
| Electric Shadows | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Traditional | 夢影童年 |
| Simplified | 梦影童年 |
| Mandarin | Mèng Yǐng Tóngnián |
| Directed by | Xiao Jiang |
| Produced by |
Derek Yee Huang Jianxin |
| Written by |
Xiao Jiang Cheng Qingsong |
| Starring |
Xia Yu Li Haibin Zhang Yijing Qi Zhongyang Wang Zhengjia |
| Music by | Zhao Linzhao |
| Cinematography |
Chen Hong Yang Lien |
| Edited by | Lei Qin |
| Distributed by | Fortissimo Films |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
93 minutes |
| Country | China |
| Language | Mandarin |
Electric Shadows is a 2004 Chinese film directed by Xiao Jiang. The English title of the film is the literal translation for the Chinese term for movies or "dian ying" (電影).
Electric Shadows is the debut film of director Xiao Jiang, one of the few active female directors in China. Xiao and Cheng Qingsong wrote the screenplay. The film was produced by mainland China's Beijing Dadi Century and Hong Kong's Happy Pictures Culture Communication Company.
The film begins when a young woman mysteriously attacks a stranger and then asks him to care for her fish while she is being arrested. When he enters her apartment he discovers an apparent shrine to the 1930s actress Zhou Xuan and that they share a love of the cinema and more. The film's reverent attitude towards the power of film and particularly classic film has brought it comparison to, or at least reference to Italy's Cinema Paradiso.
Mao Xiaobing (Xia Yu), a water bottle delivery boy in Beijing, loves to watch movies. One day, however, while riding his bike, he is attacked by Ling-Ling (Qi Zhongyang), a disturbed young woman, that lands him in the hospital. Ling-Ling is promptly arrested, but refuses to say why she attacked Mao Xiaobing, asking him only to feed her fish. Upon entering her apartment, however, Mao Xiaobing finds that Ling-Ling has created a veritable shrine to the 1930s film star, Zhou Xuan. When he stumbles upon her diary and begins reading, the film flashes back to Ling-Ling's mother as a young woman in Ningxia.
Her mother had been working in radio when she became pregnant and subsequently abandoned by her lover. Branded a counter-revolutionary, she travels to the countryside where she befriends Pan, a movie-projectionist where the two eventually marry. Ling-Ling meanwhile, thinks that her real father is a movie star of Zhou Xuan's era. Mao Xiaobing had been hit by his father, and so Ling-Ling's mother took care of him for some days. When Ling-Ling's mother and Pan marry, Mao Xiaobing had been sent away to live with relatives by his father because Mao had been a troublemaker. Ling-Ling later recalls the time they were apart as miserable, saying also that the arrival of her younger brother was "disgusting." Despite that, it is later revealed that Ling-Ling learns to accept her younger brother, but the acceptance is short lived. Mao Xiaobing later realizes that she has been watching over her parents, and after tracking down the old couple, he asks why Ling-Ling is now deaf. Recalling the events, Pan explains that Bing-Bing (Ling-Ling's younger brother) had lied to their mother to get Ling-Ling out of the house. Both of them then went up to the rooftop where she and Mao Xiaobing would watch the movies through his binoculars. After saying she would leave, Bing-Bing begs her not to leave, but then falls to the ground. Pan then hits Ling-Ling for her brother's death, leaving her deaf in both ears.
...
Wikipedia